member of Parliament says, I forget which, “look abroad into universality” for the thing desired. As you walk the street cast your eyes above the door of the worthy shopkeeper. A thousand to one that in a day’s saunter you will possess yourself, and from such a source, of a name in every respect unexceptionable. Yes, from the board of the thriving, honest, painstaking, till-respecting tradesman. And if so, how ingenious, how pleasant withal, to obtain one of your best weapons from, so to speak, the armoury of the enemy, to be fleshed immediately upon him! It is perhaps unnecessary to warn the young swindler that he must not be too homely in his choice. There is a class of names which, from their very abundance, makes it a matter of constructive ignominy to swindle under them. And some of these are Jones, Walsh, Welsh, Thomson, Johnson, Dobson, White, Brown, Williams, Simpson, Smithson, and that multitudinous monosyllable, Smith! If, in a moment of hilarity you break a lamp, wrench off a knocker, or snap a bell wire, why any one of these names may be, as of course every gentleman well knows, confidently given in to the night constable; but to attempt to swindle under them betrays a petty larceny spirit in the professor, from which my experience looks for little present gain or future reputation. No; the name of a swindler should be like the wardrobe of the true gentleman—a thing not challenging vulgar attention; but, if examined, found to be of the very best material and of the choicest workmanship. Hence let the swindler choose between a _clinquant_ (I do believe this is almost the first bit of French appearing in the essay, for the which I confess myself deficient in the graces of modern literature[16]), between the _clinquant_ of novel heroes and the homeliness of “base mechanics”—let his name be a solid, substantial, downright English name. Footnote 16: The Captain is in error. Though his essay is, assuredly, barren of “the tongues,” the author knows more of bookmaking than he apparently chooses to confess.—[JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.] [Illustration: “Any one of these names maybe confidently given to the night constable” ]